Thursday, April 07, 2016

Hello from Possum Riley...Skip Broussard and "The Church Lady"~

The Church Lady

Skip
Broussard programmed WKGN for a couple of years in the late 1960s, before
moving on to WMPS in Memphis. Skip came out of WTIX in New Orleans and was a
good PD. He got WKGN’s nose out of the mire where it had sunk after exporting
most of its talent to WMAK, when Mooney Broadcasting bought that station in
Nashville.

Broussard
was a snappy dresser, kept his hair cut neatly and was a very presentable
representative for the station. His concessions to the times were bell-bottom
pants, boots and a tendency to wear a scarf cinched loosely around his neck.

One
afternoon, he came back from downtown and was talking to me in the production
studio and he rubbed his knee a couple of times. He finally pulled up his pant
leg and there was a bruise across his knee.

Here’s the
tale he told. I wasn’t there, but Skip was always a straight-up dude with me:

He was
walking down the street that fronted the old Millers Department Store and saw a
street preacher with a little flock gathered around him. Rather than try to
work his way through them, Skip crossed the street and was walking down the
other sidewalk, when the preacher raised his voice and started pointing at him.
Skip kept on walking and crossed back at the corner. When he did, a few of
those who had been exhorted by the preacher broke away and caught up with him.
One of the men told him he needed to give up his evil ways and a little old
lady creamed him across the knees with her umbrella.